Solectek Releases WiMAX 3.65GHz System for Wireless ISP Market

(Product News, 6 May 2008)

Solectek Corp. has released its 3.65GHz WiMAX base stations and subscriber terminals targeted at Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) and municipalities. The company also released a white paper titled "The U.S. WiMAX 3.65GHz Opportunity: The History of the Band and How WISPs Can Register for FCC Approval."

"We are excited to announce what we believe is the easiest to deploy and most cost effective WiMAX 3.65 GHz system available," says Dr. Eric Lee, CEO for Solectek. "Our 3.65 platform was designed from the ground up for small to mid-size WISPs. Solectek's goal was to create an affordable and powerful system, yet not make the system so complicated that WISPs would need to hire network operations experts to install and even operate their networks. From our plug-and-play subscriber units to our user-friendly graphical user interface used to manage the network, our platform is perfect for the typical hands-on operator to install and manage entirely themselves. And that obviously has a bottom line positive impact on the ROI that WISPs need to realize, especially in rural areas."

Industry research firms agree that the market for 3.65 GHz is poised for growth. "There has been strong interest on the part of carriers and vendors in the 3.65GHz band since the FCC rulings," said Adlane Fellah, CEO and Founder of Maravedis Inc. "The 3.65GHz market enables manufacturers such as Solectek and other BWA vendors the opportunity to leverage much of their investment in 3.5GHz products by introducing a slightly modified WiMAX platform for the U.S. and other markets where 3.5 cannot be deployed. The 3.65GHz band can fill a void, especially in rural areas not served or under-served by other broadband services providers."

Monica Paolini of Senza Fili Consulting added: "The FCC's decision to use a non-exclusive shared use licensing scheme for the 3.65GHz band, combined with a fast and affordable license registration process, has created a unique opportunity for small to mid-size service providers to expand their business cost effectively and to protect their investment."

Among the key features of Solectek's WiMAX Base Station and Indoor Controller are:

- Affordable subscriber units and integrated "all-in-one" base stations.
- Flexible support for 3.5MHz and 7MHz channel bandwidths.
- A 4U rack-height chassis designed to support various Base Station designs from one to eight sectors. WISPs can mix and match cards or purchase pre-built, pre-tested common chassis configurations.
- Uplink card used to aggregate data and power from the Base Station ASN gateway site and deliver it to Solectek's outdoor Base Station units.
- GPS kit to synchronize multiple base stations.
- SkyWay-MAX Manager which includes an easy-to-use graphical user interface application. In addition, Solectek's EMS application or Telnet/SSH CLI interface may be used.
- Optional failover switching for optimum reliability and subscriber uptime.


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